MySQL Workbench – Next-generation visual database design application

November 25, 2008 — mahmud ahsan

Visual database design is very essential. Almost every web application needs database. And by designing visual representation, relation of tables makes an developer easy to understand on the database. There are many tools to design database like DBDesigner, SQLYog. Recently I found another application that is called MySQL Workbench. It can be used to efficiently design, manage and document database schemata. After using it’s functionality, I found this is a really good tool for design database specially for MySQL.

MySQL Model Overview Page:

This screenshot shows the MySQL Model Overview page. It is the central starting point of any MySQL Workbench project and allows the creation and management of diagrams, schemata and their objects, scripts and more.

EER Diagram

Each Workbench model can hold several EER Diagrams that visualize different parts of the catalog. The diagram can be freely scaled to fit the screen size.

Modeling Tools:

Notation Styles:

A number of different notation styles are available at your disposal. Aside from the default crow foot style, you can also switch to the classic style or one that has been modeled after Microsoft Access, called the “Connect To Column” style. These two are demonstrated in the next screen shot. But that is still not all MySQL Workbench has to offer. There is also the UML and the IDEF1X style too.

Designer Canvas:

Utilizing a special canvas for drawing EER Diagrams enables for high speed rendering and display effects to highlight important information. For systems capable of providing proper OpenGL support hardware rendering will be enabled in the future, giving even more power to the designer for better user expericence.